Portent

I bet conspiracy theorists have a field day with this site. It’s obviously meant to secretly track people (yeah right!). Anyway I thought all notes had small metal implants that could be watched from space…Or am I confusing those with the small metal implants in noses or teeth put there by aliens?

It’s a bit of fun really. If you come into possession of a US note ranging in value from $1 to $100 and you’re registered with the site then you can enter its serial number and location and possibly see where its been if others have done the same.

This doesn’t just work in the USA, if you live in the UK and have a note there are 858 locations (villages, cities and towns) listed that you can log it against.
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Popularity: 9% [?]

I have no idea what this is about but it’s colourful if rather badly wrong!

It’s just a map of the USA, seemingly as the Japanese (well those who can’t read an Atlas or view Google Maps) perceive the USA.

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Popularity: 35% [?]

It is believed that our ancestors originated in Africa and about 60,000 years ago slowly spread through the world.

In the last couple of years National Geographic Magazine and IBM created a 5 year research project called The Genographic Project to try and trace through DNA the path’s that early man took.

The Genographic Project has recently published a report on human mitochondrial DNA data from the first 18 months of the project, published in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. Most DNA is contained in the cell but separate parts of the cell called organelles (akin to organs in a body) such as Mitochondria also contain DNA. Interesting stuff.

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Popularity: 8% [?]

If you travel a lot round the world then you are probably more than old enough to drink in countries where drink is permitted! But it’s still interesting to see. And 25 for a drink in India? Well I suppose that stops students having a drink!

I’ve always thought it odd, in fact stupid that in the USA you can get married young, fight in the armed forces (average age in Vietnam was 19) yet not have a drink legally until you’re 21. Where is the sense in that?

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Popularity: 8% [?]

There a number of Flash games where you have to place the States in the correct location in the USA. This one was covered not so long ago on portent.

Something a bit different is combining the idea of locating things (in this case countries) with Tetris to make it more interesting. Countries or small states (Andorra, Lichtenstein etc) fall slowly from the top. Use the cursor keys to rotate and place them correctly. Three levels of difficulty make it more or less challenging.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

This is simple but unless you really know the USA and exactly where all the states are located, it’s not that easy.

Just drag a piece to where you think it should go. It tallies up your score and shows you where it should have gone if you get it wrong.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I’m always on the lookout for sources of data on the web. Creating websites and writing software as I do, there is an amazing amount opf resources if you know where to look.

The geography network is one such source. As they says “The Geography Network is a global network of geographic information users and providers. It provides the infrastructure needed to support the sharing of geographic information among data providers, service providers, and users around the world. Through the Geography Network, you can access many types of geographic content including dynamic maps, downloadable data, and more advanced Web services.”

There’s an excellent widget that lets you select the area and then you can list the data sources available for that area. Not everyone needs or uses geographical data but if you do…

Mind you, they do have some weird ideas about how the web works, in particular hyper-linking to their site. D’uh- chaps. Do you ask every search engine to fill in one of these forms? If not then why should other people?

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Popularity: 8% [?]

Well London Underground (who receive over £1,200 a year from me!) have only themselves to blame after the earlier fiasco when they got heavy with one of their supporters over his anagram map.

Ed Sanders, a Cambridge Uni Computer Science student (I guess) and Wikipedian sysop, together with JDFoster has put together individual maps of the various lines as well as Zone 1 and (shown) Zone 2 maps using public domain data and software he’s written to fit smooth bezier curves through the stations. They look very nice and are licensed under Creative Commons. There are also some derivative maps including the July 7th 2005 bombings and July 21st.

The maps are hosted on the Wikimedia site, part of Wikipedia.

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Popularity: 9% [?]